page_title: Graceland
section_title: Estate
hierarchical_section_title: Graceland / Estate
caption_attribution_description: Graceland covered with snow. Memphis, Tennessee.
context_page_description: Graceland is a mansion on a 13.8-acre estate in Memphis, Tennessee, United States, once owned by singer and actor Elvis Presley. His daughter, Lisa Marie Presley, has been the owner of Graceland since his death in 1977. Graceland is located at 3764 Elvis Presley Boulevard in the vast Whitehaven community, about 9 miles from Downtown and less than 4 miles north of the Mississippi border.
  It was opened to the public as a museum on June 7, 1982. The site was listed in the National Register of Historic Places on November 7, 1991, becoming the first site related to rock and roll to be entered therein. Graceland was declared a National Historic Landmark on March 27, 2006, also a first for a rock singer. Graceland is the second most-visited house in the U.S. after the White House, with over 650,000 visitors a year.
context_section_description: After purchasing the property Presley spent in excess of $500,000 carrying out extensive modifications to suit his needs including a pink Alabama fieldstone wall surrounding the grounds that has several years' worth of graffiti from visitors, who simply refer to it as "the wall", a wrought-iron front gate, designed and built by Abe Sauer, that was shaped like a book of sheet music, with green colored musical notes and a silhouette of Elvis. Presley also installed a kidney shaped swimming pool and a racquetball court.
  The racquetball court is reminiscent of an old country club, furnished in dark leather and a functional bar. There is a sunken sitting area with the ever-present stereo system found throughout Graceland, as well as the dark brown upright piano upon which Elvis played for what were to be his last songs, Willie Nelson's "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain" and The Righteous Brothers' "Unchained Melody". Reports conflict about which one was the last song. The sitting area has a floor-to-ceiling shatterproof window designed to watch the many racquetball games that took place there when Elvis was alive. In the early hours of the morning Elvis died, he, his girlfriend Ginger Alden, his first cousin Billy Smith and Billy's wife Jo played a game of racquetball ending the game with the song on the piano before Elvis walked into the main house to wash his hair and go to bed. Today the two story court has been restored to the way it was when Elvis used the building.
  One of Presley's better known modifications was the addition of the Meditation Garden, designed and built by architect Bernard Grenadier, that was used by Elvis to reflect on any problems or situations that arose during his life. It is also where he, his parents, and grandmother, Minnie Mae Hood Presley, are buried. A small stone memorializes Elvis' twin brother Jesse Garon who died at birth.
  Elsewhere on the estate is a small white building that served as his father's office; an old smokehouse that housed Elvis' shooting range; and a fully functional stable of horses.
caption: Music-themed gate
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